Never a company to follow trends, Nintendo has developed a reputation as a trend-setter. The Japanese multi-national corporation continued that pattern this past Spring with the release of the Nintendo 3DS, the successor to the popular Nintendo DS.

Going a step further than its predecessor, the 3DS features a three-dimensional stereoscopic effect by utilizing the autostereoscopy process. The result is the world’s first handheld video game that features glasses-free 3-D. The experience, to no one’s surprise, is totally unique and once again proves that Nintendo, never content to be just “one of the pack,” has done it once more.

First impressions do matter, and the 3DS may not pass the “first look” test with many gamers. After the smooth curves of the DS, the 3DS, in comparison, looks almost “plain,” but once it’s in hand, users will immediately see that the improved functionality overshadows any doubts about the style. Another marked difference from the DS is the 3DS’ ultra glossy finish. It may take hardcore gamers awhile to adapt to the smoother “grip,” of the 3DS, but it’s a minor complaint.

The 3DS display features a top screen that measures 3 1/2 inches diagonally, while the bottom screen measures in at just over 3 inches. The 3DS screen resolution is much higher than the DS Lite screen, giving the user a wider playing area as well as incredible 3-D graphics.

The exterior features dual VGA cameras; one for taking 3-D pictures and one for scanning AR (Augmented Reality) cards. Left and right clickers are situated near the rear hinge, along with game cartridge slots, a charging port, an infrared beam port and a retractable stylus. The left side features a sliding volume control, SD card slot, a wireless toggle switch and on the bottom is an audio jack.

The 3DS comes with loads of software, including a unique Activity Log which tracks game play and has the additional feature of counting each step taken, which allows the user to accumulate Play Coins, which can be
redeemed for special games and applications. Also included is a fully functional Internet browser that is “game-friendly,” allowing gamers to pause a game without having to restart.

The Face Raiders built-in game is sure to give gamers a fun, new experience with its ability to take your own pictures which can then be inserted into an actual game.

The Nintendo 3DS initial color launch offers Blue and Cosmo Black, with Flame Red available in September.

The system will offer facial and voice recognition. One example provided was the capacity to control the motion of a light saber on screen by utilizing hand movements. The control system will also facilitate such actions as synchronization of dance moves versus an on screen command prompt as shown in MTV Game’s Dance Central.

As sound and graphics have attained near life like experiences a greater number of video game makers are now looking for new ways to immerse the gamer. By getting them more physically involved in games, the game makers are hoping to give gamers another reason to continue playing.

I first got wind of the problem at around 3 p.m. PST, reading a Twitter update from Game Informer’s. I learned PS3 Trophy information was gone, and I couldn’t play any games. That was two hours before Sony itself acknowledged the problem and said it was looking into it.

Before I knew it, Sony customers blew the story wide open. Reports of internal clock issues were everywhere, mainly stemming from the popular gaming forum NeoGAF. By midnight, one user had posted a FAQ on who was affected, what to do and what’s at risk by turning on your console.

That’s exactly what Sony should’ve done. Instead, the company waited until Monday morning, when spokesman Patrick Seybold posted a message explaining the errors. That was the last we heard from Sony. Among the perfectly valid questions that were unanswered: How will a fix will be delivered to people who can’t go online? Will people get their trophies back?

Sony still has some explaining to do, and gamers deserve an apology not just for the outage itself, but for being kept in the dark…

Sony has since then officially fixed the bug and now the playstation network back up and running.

Each machine weighs only a bit more than three pounds and has a 13.1-inch LCD that is LED backlit and has 100% color saturation on some models. Other features include Blu-ray drive, dynamic hybrid graphics, optional 3G, 512GB SSD option plus lots more.

The larger Vaio F notebook has a 16.4-inch LCD and option Blu-ray drive.  The machine uses NVIDIA GeForce graphics and Sony Transfer Jet software for moving photos and video to and from the notebook.  It uses an Intel Core i7 CPUs and more.  The Z-series will ship in late spring starting at $1,900.  The F series available for pre-order today starting at $1000.

The Zii chip has been shrouded in secrecy, but over the next several months, we can expect to see the Zii smart phone hit the market, pending funding from licensors, as well as other Zii-powered systems and pieces of hardware.

As well as content from Sony’s ebook store, the Reader Daily Edition will also play nicely with PDF, Word, BBeB, ePub and other text formats.  You can highlight blocks of text and add notes with the included stylus, or use the on-screen keyboard if your handwriting is illegible, and there’s an onboard dictionary for checking up confusing words.

Battery life is rated at up to 2.5 weeks from a single charge, though you’ll only see that sort of longevity if the wireless is shut off.  Switch it on and you’re looking at more like a week’s worth of use.  Actual deliveries are expected to arrive sometime between December 18th and January 8th, which is a pretty large window if you’re considering giving the Sony Reader Daily Edition as a holiday gift.

Press Release:

SONY READER DAILY EDITION NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-SALE AT SONYSTYLE.COM

SAN DIEGO – November 18, 2009 Delivering on its promise to give consumers a variety of choices, Sony today announced its newest addition to the Sony Reader Family — the Reader Daily Edition™ — is now available for pre-order on SonyStyle.com. The Reader Daily Edition, a highly-anticipated wireless model with 3G connectivity, will ship next month.

The Reader Daily Edition joins the Reader Pocket Edition™ and Reader Touch Edition™ to round out Sony’s complete family of digital readers. The Reader Daily Edition gives consumers wireless access to Sony’s eBookstore from most of the U.S., via a 3G mobile broadband network. Book lovers will be able to browse, purchase and download books as well as select newspapers and magazines on the go. There are no monthly fees or transaction charges for the basic wireless connectivity and users still have the option to side load personal documents or content from other compatible sites via USB. Sony will announce newspaper and magazine content providers within the next month.

The Reader Daily Edition features a responsive, menu-driven, seven-inch touch screen panel that enables quick, intuitive navigation, page turning, highlighting and note taking with the swipe of a finger or by using the included stylus pen. Users can take handwritten notes with the stylus pen or type with the virtual keyboard. All notes can be exported and printed out for easy reference. The Reader Touch Edition includes an onboard Oxford American English Dictionary that allows you to look up a word by simply tapping on it.

For more details on the Reader Daily Edition please visit sonystyle.com; Sony’s online destination for book lovers – wordsmoveme.com; or the Sony Electronics Community, which includes a corporate blog, video, photos, polls and profiles. For a list of all the Sony Electronics community sites please visit:

Key Facts:

o Sony’s new Reader Daily Edition is now on sale at SonyStyle.com.

o The Reader Daily Edition provides wireless access to Sony’s eBookstore from most of the U.S.

o Wireless access is provided by a 3G mobile broadband network.

o The Reader Daily Edition’s seven-inch wide, full touch screen display provides intuitive navigation and comfortable layout of content, including newspapers and magazines, in portrait or landscape orientation.

o In portrait mode, about 30-35 lines of text are visible, making the experience very similar to that of a printed paperback book.

o A high contrast ratio with 16 levels of grayscale ensures that text and images are crisp and easy to read.

o The Reader Daily Edition features an attractive aluminum body with an integrated protective cover.

o Easy access to the embedded dictionary with a simple double-tap on a word for its meaning.

o The Reader Daily Edition has enough internal memory to hold more than one thousand standard eBooks and expansion slots for memory cards to hold even more.

o It will sell for about $399.

o Newspaper and magazine content providers to be unveiled within the next month.

Quotes:

Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division: “We firmly believe consumers should have choice in every aspect of their digital reading experience. With the availability of the Reader Daily Edition, we are delivering on that promise. We now have the most comprehensive family of devices on the market, the greatest access to free and affordable eBooks through The eBook Store from Sony and our affiliated ecosystem, and now round out our Reader offering with a wireless device that lets consumer purchase and download content on the go.”

It’s possible to pre-register interest, though not preorder at this stage, which means we’re still not entirely clear on how much the XPERIA X10 will cost.  Still, this is a premium handset and, as part of Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA range, will be priced accordingly; online retailer Clove are saying £400 ($668) pre-tax, though we’re guessing that’s speculative rather than based on any solid figures.

More interesting than the general release is when the XPERIA X10 might make it to North American shores.  Sony Ericsson did express their intention to launch the smartphone there – complete with its nifty Timescape and Mediascape apps – but blamed carrier issues for what will likely be a release later in 2010.

The BigShot, still in testing, is a super-simple digicam from the Computer Vision Lab at Columbia University. It comes in parts, ready to be assembled (by kids, but I can’t wait to get my hands on one), and teaches you along the way how these things work. It’s not quite the transparent view you get from making an old analog camera, where you can see how everything works, but it’s as close as you can get from a machine that uses circuit boards.

The feature set itself is interesting enough. The BigShot is powered by a single AA battery, or by spinning a crank (4-6 rotations will provide enough power for one shot). The flash is made up of LEDs, and there is no removable memory card — instead you just hook up the camera to a computer via USB.

The lens arrangement is the best part, though. An array of options is laid out on a dial, which is rotated into position, much like the elements on a microscope. Matched pairs sit opposite each other on the circle, so you look through one (there is nor screen on the back) and take a picture through it’s partner. Lens choices are “normal” (a 43º field of view), “panoramic”, which appears to act likE an anamorphic lens, squishing the scene horizontally to be stretched back out in the accompanying BigShot software, and “Stereo Prism”, which splits an image into stereo pairs, again for processing later.

One oddity, caused by the lack of a screen, is that you can only delete the last photo you took: this is done by turning the control dial to the trashcan icon and pressing the shutter. We actually like this setup: along with the limited (and unspecified) amount of on-board memory and the lack of an image review function is that you will shoot like you did with film — every frame is precious and everything comes as a surprise when you finally get to see the photos.

As a non mass market educational aid, it’s sure to be too expensive. But perhaps, if sold as a toy, or advertised as a low-tech camera, kind of a digital Lomo, it could take off. I’m all over this, and if it comes in at under $100 I’ll be grabbing one for myself and my nephew, who doesn’t have enough geek influences in his life.

The disc is available free and if you don’t have a Netflix account you can get one for only $8.99 per month that includes unlimited streaming. The streaming feature is possible via the BD-Live feature the PS3 supports. Way to skirt that exclusive streaming clause with Microsoft Netflix!

That camera is also capable of recording HD-quality video, which we’re assuming means 720p footage.  In cross section the Kurara resembles a Sony CyberShot camera, indeed.  Known specifications are scant, though it’s apparently been confirmed that there’s no USB connector (which likely means yet another appearance of Sony Ericsson’s proprietary port).

What we also don’t know is whether Sony Ericsson’s new Timescape and Mediascape social-networking and entertainment systems – as debuted on the XPERIA X10 – will cross over to the Kurara.  The company told us earlier this week that their new user-experience was platform agnostic, and would run on both Android and Symbian handsets; however they also confirmed that there would be no retroactive updates and as such the Satio would not see the new apps.  However, with the SE Kurara likely to make its official debut at Mobile World Congress in February 2010, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it will get what the Satio has missed out on.